


a new world is waiting

by starblessed



Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Pioneers, F/M, because carwheeler needs cute aus too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 10:50:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13739319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starblessed/pseuds/starblessed
Summary: Anne isn't sure how Phillip is able to talk her into anything. It's almost magic, the way with just a few whispered words from him can have her looking with hope towards a future she never realized existed. She is convinced she would follow her husband anywhere.Even to build a home in the wild west.





	a new world is waiting

**Author's Note:**

> I got a request for a Pioneer AU on Tumblr, because the movie roughly takes places during the Westward Expansion period??? Around that time??? So I may or may how have brushed off my memories of Little House on The Prairie and got to work.

Anne draws her shawl tighter around her shoulders and grits her teeth against the rattle of the wagon beneath her. The way they’ve jerked and sputtered over the last few miles would be enough to rattle her brains, were they any less grounded in her head. As it is, it’s a challenge to keep everything they own from bouncing everywhere. Their bibles, their books, the packs of food and satchels of coins… each bounce threatens to send them flying. Only Anne’s quick reflexes have been enough to save them so far.

It’s nothing they can’t endure, of course (god knows that they’ve been through worse together); but this tiny space has become their home over the last few months, and she’d _really_ appreciate if their home stopped getting bounced around.

From the front of the wagon, she sees movement. A second later, Phillip’s face peers at her through the caravan opening.

“Rough terrain’s almost behind us now,” he announces, eyes bright and cheeks flushed from the fresh air outside. “How’re we doing back here?”

Anne eyes him over the gruel she’s stirring up, amusement flashing in her dark eyes. _“We_ are doing just fine,” she informs him, he’s coming to rest over her rounded stomach. “Dinner’s doing even better. I’d keep an eye on those horses, Mr. Carlyle, just in case they end up taking ya somewhere we don’t wanna go.”

Phillip likes to pretend he’s a master with his horses. Really, he’s as much of a student in their language as he ever was to Latin or French, in the fancy schools he attended as a boy. In many ways, horses are more incomprehensible to him. They’re less complicated, however, and far friendlier than humans. Anne wasn’t surprised that he took to their two steeds immediately.

Their two horses, and the caravan they pull. These are the only things Anne and Phillip have to rely on in their long voyage into unmapped territory. Some days, Anne has no clue how Phillip talked her into such a harebrained scheme. Some days, she doesn’t know how she ended up with this life at all.

“What’s out in Michigan or Ohio,” she had demanded when Phillip first pitched the idea, “that we don’t have right here at home?”

“It’s a new world, Annie,” Phillip coaxed, his eyes shining like stars. “They want to ban slavery out there. In the West, no one cares if you’re rich or dirt poor. They don’t care about the color of your skin. You have to be tough to survive, and _baby_ —“

He wrapped an arm around Anne’s waist, drawing her in before she even realized it. She could not keep a smile off her lips as she finished for him: “Lord knows that we’re the toughest.”

Every piece of her _wants_ to believe him. When she thinks of the beginning of a family that she holds inside of her, she can only look to the future. That has to be a bright one — or else she really doesn’t know where they’ll end up. She has no choice but to believe that all of Phillip’s hopes and dreams will come to sweet fruition.

Maybe the West really does hold promise for them. Maybe it’ll be the new world Phillip swears it is.

Anne can be forgiven for her skepticism. At least she knows one thing, though, and that one thing is enough that she can handle whatever sharp turns and perilous crossings they face before they make it to their new land.

It’s an incredible adventure. As long as it’s one she and Phillip get to share together, that makes it all worth it.


End file.
